Community Wind Arrives Stateside

European models of co-operative ownership of wind farms are now taking off in North America.

LONDON --
What would you imagine to be the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. wind industry today? It might not be what you'd think. According to the American Wind Industry Association's (AWEA) annual market report, the community wind segment is growing at a faster pace than commercial wind, capturing 5.6 percent of the overall wind market at the end of 2010 and projected to have roughly the same market share in 2011.

Community wind is a relatively new idea in the US. In fact, in 2001, in a report entitled Community Wind Power Ownership Schemes in Europe and their Relevance to the United States, Mark Bolinger of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory stated that, unlike in many areas of Europe, community ownership of wind projects was ‘unheard of’ in the U.S., where most wind projects were commercially owned. However, local communities around the country are slowly but steadily beginning to realise the benefits of community wind.

Community Wind in Europe

European community-owned wind projects have been around since the 1970s. In Denmark, the birthplace of community wind, about 80 percent of installed wind capacity is individually or co-operatively owned; in Germany it’s about 51 percent. Sweden also has co-operative wind, and the community wind market in the UK is growing.

For an example, in the German district of North Frisia (home to the town of Husum, which has hosted a major wind energy trade fair since 1989) there are more than 60 wind farms with a capacity of about 700 MW, and 90 percent are community-owned. According to Jens Müller-Nielsen, managing director of REpower Systems GmbH, North Frisia is a model location for community wind. ‘With the success model of public wind farms,’ says Müller-Nielsen, ‘the region is leading the way for other regions and states, especially in southern Germany.’

OEMs Enter the Community Space

Major OEMs are becoming community wind market players. In 2011 REPower signed contracts with a syndicate representing seven farming communities in North Frisia to deliver 47 turbines with 115 MW capacity; the projects are planned to be operational in 2013. And in March of this year Gamesa signed a distribution agreement with Harvest the Wind Network (HTWN), a U.S. installer, making HTWN the primary U.S. distributor for Gamesa’s 840 kW G5X turbines.

Gamesa vice president for marketing, David Rosenberg, said: ‘Distributed and community wind is the next frontier for Gamesa. Combine our turbine platform with Harvest the Wind’s vast network of distributed wind developers, and the wind-energy solutions we can jointly bring to communities and businesses across North America is enormous.’

Community, Co-operative and Municipal

There are three main business models for community wind projects. In the wind energy co-operative model, developed in Denmark, wind turbines are jointly owned. For example, in Copenhagen’s Middelgrunden Wind Turbine Cooperative, shareholders buy shares corresponding to 1/40,500 of the partnership each. Of the 20 turbines in the harbour, local utility Copenhagen Energy owns the 10 northern turbines and the co-operative owns turbines 11-20. U.S. observers have cited this public/private partnership model as a potentially interesting way to move projects forward.

In another model, some wind turbines are municipally owned and operated, sited on town land, and tax exempt. As an example, the Hull Wind One project in Boston, Massachusetts, which boasts a 660-kW Vestas turbine, ‘zeroed out’ the town’s street lighting bill and generated 1,597,367 KWh in its first year. Of the town’s residents, 95 percent support the project.

Community wind is now outpacing commercial wind to provide 5.5 percent of the overall market, according to the AWEA (Source: Communities for Renewables)

In U.S. community wind projects a local entity or group will usually initiate a project, do the planning work, and then team up with a national developer or turbine manufacturer to realise the idea, offering investment opportunities to the local community at an early stage. The community thus has a direct financial stake in the project, over and above the usual income from land lease and taxes.

Community wind projects range from 1-1100 turbines, usually commercial scale and more than 100 kW, and may generate energy for on-site use or for sale. According to Windustry, an outreach and advocacy organisation, US community wind projects are owned by farmers, schools, colleges, tribal governments, municipal utilities, local businesses, rural electric co-operatives and others. The organisation reports that community wind projects are in the planning stages in nearly every U.S. state where there is wind development.

The Benefits

Andreas Nauen, CEO of REpower Systems SE, says: ‘The benefits to the initiators [of community wind projects] are plain to see: Not only business tax but much of the value added stays in the region and the citizens can play active roles in the planning process.’ In addition, local jobs are created: a 2009 report from the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) showed that the number of construction-period jobs created for a community wind project is, on average, 1.3 times higher than for other kinds of projects, and the number of operations-period jobs is as much as 2.8 times higher. ‘Policies that prioritise higher levels of local ownership,’ concluded the report, ‘are likely to result in increased economic development impacts.’

A cornerstone of the community wind idea is that profits will be reinvested into the community. Jake Susman, CEO of US developer OwnEnergy, currently the largest national player in community wind, says: ‘Our Pennsylvania project makes donations to the local fire house. We sponsor scholarships in Texas around our project there. We’re doing similar work in Oklahoma, and we’re now in upstate New York putting together a community group to let the community decide how to reinvest in the local area. In New York the people want more hiking trails; we also sponsor the local baseball team.’ Wind power for schools is a popular benefit, adds Susman.

Success Stories...

Five-year-old OwnEnergy has developed 27 community wind projects totalling more than 1 GW across 14 US states, according to Susman. The company’s strategy is to attend trade shows and ‘let the [customers] come to us’ – ensuring that local support is already in place – rather than choosing an ideal location in advance.

‘A big part of success in smaller projects,’ says Susman, ‘is to make sure you don’t spend your time, or your local partners’, in wild goose chases. We’ve developed advanced feasibility and screening systems; we see 300 leads a year, but actually take on about 5% of them; and fewer of those make it all the way through to completion.’

In conversation with Susman, one is struck by his emphasis on community relations. In getting to know the community and feeding profits back into it, OwnEnergy cultivates relationships that bind developer and residents together.

...and Cautionary Tales

Susman also referred to examples where ‘some of these partnerships haven’t worked out so great’. In some cases, he said, the community ultimately felt that it did not ‘get what it bargained for’.

US communities’ problems with wind turbines overwhelmingly involve siting and noise issues, which can divide a community once united around the idea of wind power and can result in a backlash against the developer. A single wind turbine in Falmouth, Massachusetts, has been the subject of local controversy since some residents living close to the turbine, which is sited at the town’s waste water treatment plant, complained of headaches and disturbed sleep. The community of Vinalhaven, Maine, has been profiled in a film about ‘wind turbine syndrome’. However, health issues caused by wind turbines ‘are not on the agenda’ in Germany and have ‘not received much traction’ in Denmark – in both cases because of widespread public and parliamentary support for wind power.

Growing Policy Support

In late 2011, US senators Franken (Minnesota) and Tester (Montana) introduced the Community Wind Act, which would extend the small wind investment tax credit to projects up to 20 MW, and would last through 2016. So far the bill has not been passed.

Denmark's Middelgrunden wind farm came about through community involvement (Source: Tildy Bayar)

At the state level, for example, Minnesota’s Community-Based Energy Development (C-BED) programme is designed to optimise local and regional agricultural resource economic development benefits from renewable energy, and to facilitate the development of community-based renewable energy projects. C-BED projects are owned by ‘farmers, local businesses, schools, community groups, and ordinary members of local communities,’ according to the initiative’s website.

The Way Forward

‘The beauty of community wind,’ says Jake Susman, ‘is that it captures hearts and minds in a way that commercial wind farms struggle to do.’ Not only do these projects benefit local communities in numerous ways, they are also the best way to ensure residents feel invested in their wind turbines and avoid the kinds of planning delays and conflicts that often surround non-local developers. When communities are involved in their local wind projects, everybody wins.

17 Comments

The constant problems with industrial turbine complexes (how anyone can call them farms) should not be ignored. Surely there are far better forms of renewable energy than wind. Inefficient, unreliable, requiring backup from coal, gas etc adds to rising electricityn prices. They spoil the landscape, cause noise and flicker and add to sleep deprivation a cause of ill health. Take away the subsidies and there would be no wind industry afterall they have been around for years and should be able to exist without the 34 million pounds spent to stop them during gales. When you see thousands and thousands worldwide of rusting old turbines not removed and the concrete left in the ground it is a sad and sorry site. The wind industry uses divide and conquer with the same old spiel repeated to the detriment of those in opposition. We do not need or want these industrial environmental monsters. Try some other source of power as in the Middle East they are using waste to energy and some use solar and wave. Hydro schemes should also help.

I'm going to talk about Vinalhaven. Community wind project or no, anyone in the path of a wind energy project takes a huge financial loss. One's home becomes worthless - who would want to live next to a noisy turbine which causes painful loss of sleep with all the associated ailments from the stress? So if you can afford to you leave, often simply by abandoning the home. Those who cannot afford to move (buy another house) must suffer the loss of sleep and loss of their right to enjoy their property.

For most of us, our home is the major portion of our net worth. So the loss of our home's value is financially devastating. Consider if someone stole from you the value of your house - what would your life be like following such a theft? Not good at all.

In Vinalhaven electric energy rates have doubled since the turbines went up. Perhaps that's why the project continually runs the turbines faster (and louder) than the state noise regulations permit - an attempt to make the rates a little better. They still haven't explained why our rates have gone from 6-1/2 cents/kwh in late 2009 to 13 cents/kwh in June 2012. They claim they are making electricity for about 6-1/2 cents/kwh, but haven't explained where the rest of the 13 cents goes.

Then, when the power grid goes out (as it did during hurricane Irene in 2011) the turbines had to shut down making the whole concept of "energy independence" a farce. The project runs on a net metering basis with the mainland grid via a cable from the island. The island doesn't have the electrical infrastructure to handle the variable voltages and power from the turbines, so it must shut the turbines down and wait for the cable to come back online.

We were all told we wouldn't hear these things. Wishful thinking and lies helped us all to decide on this project. What we got was lots of noise, doubled rates, community discord, and financial devastation for nearby residents.

This article gushes that Community Wind is a "relatively new idea" in America.

Why not just cut to the chase and say that Community Wind energy is an asinine idea?

Wind turbines are not compatible with ANY other uses of land, by human populations, for historic or scenic preservation or for conservation of wildlife habitat.

It is asinine to consider installing such industrial energy facilities, which tower over the landscape and broadcast their adverse impacts over a huge area, within our communities.

In fact, as engineering studies of actual wind energy installations have increasingly shown, wind turbines don't reduce GHG emissions or fossil fuel consumption to any appreciable degree when they are added to the grid.

They cause load imbalances; they're expensive; they ruin habitats and threaten wildlife; and they don't accomplish anything useful. They are a triumph of wishful thinking over human rationality - nothing more than an empty -- and wasteful -- and damaging -- "feel good" gesture.

They don't belong in our communities. They don't belong in our last few precious remaining wild places. They don't belong anywhere.

They are monuments to our intellectual laziness; our moral vacuousness, as we sacrifice those who suffer from them; and ultimately of our collective gullibility and our stupidity.

@JD Regulatory mechanisms, like net metering, feed-in tariffs and even avoided costs, have proven ineffective at balancing the need to open the market and still prevent oversupply and high costs. The basis for any viable renewable energy industry must be free markets and competition. We resent the US for allowing utility monopolies to block our (lowest-cost) biomass technology from the marketplace. The private sector will not invest in new technology as long as there are monopolies that can take any new technology whenever they want.

Kingston,Massachusett homeowners near four industrial wind turbines say the whirring blades are causing health issues ranging from ringing ears and chronic headaches to vertigo and sleep disturbance. The residents want officials to shut down the wind machines while noise measurement is done it is affecting their health.

Massachusetts’ wind energy is the scene of a revolt against wind turbines .At one time it was NIMBY "not in my backyard". Today so many residents are losing their residential property rights many residents understand it't now NIMBY "next it may be you".Many people can't live in their homes because of what the state calls annoyance noise and scientist call infra sound .

Class action litigation and expensive studies are being prepared as the industrial wind energy continues to lobby the elected state officials of Massachusetts .

Commercial / Industrial wind turbine poor siting in residential areas of Massachusetts has given the wind industry a bad name . The more turbines that are installed the more citizens groups rise to fight the turbines over noise,shadow flicker and now the wind industries dirty little secret about the catastrophic failures of the gearboxs in the turbines ,some as early as a year or two after the warranty runs out as in Portsmouth ,Rhode Islands high school wind turbine .

The State of Massachusetts has failed its citizens. The noise issues over commercial wind will stop the industrial wind business in Massachusetts . The wind lobby has failed the citizens of Massachusetts- Green Energy has been given a bad name over the poor siting of commercial wind turbines in Massachusetts and Rhode Island

Kingston,Massachusett homeowners near four industrial wind turbines say the whirring blades are causing health issues ranging from ringing ears and chronic headaches to vertigo and sleep disturbance. The residents want officials to shut down the wind machines while noise measurement is done it is affecting their health.

Massachusetts’ wind energy is the scene of a revolt against wind turbines .At one time it was NIMBY "not in my backyard". Today so many residents are losing their residential property rights many residents understand it't now NIMBY "next it may be you".Many people can't live in their homes because of what the state calls annoyance noise and scientist call infra sound .

Class action litigation and expensive studies are being prepared as the industrial wind energy continues to lobby the elected state officials of Massachusetts .

Commercial / Industrial wind turbine poor siting in residential areas of Massachusetts has given the wind industry a bad name . The more turbines that are installed the more citizens groups rise to fight the turbines over noise,shadow flicker and now the wind industries dirty little secret about the catastrophic failures of the gearboxs in the turbines ,some as early as a year or two after the warranty runs out as in Portsmouth ,Rhode Islands high school wind turbine .

The State of Massachusetts has failed its citizens. The noise issues over commercial wind will stop the industrial wind business in Massachusetts . The wind lobby has failed the citizens of Massachusetts- Green Energy has been given a bad name over the poor siting of commercial wind turbines in Massachusetts and Rhode Island

Mike, in 1992 Lawton Chiles (then Gov FL) and I, with several others, actually co-authored the first state laws for co-generation. 23 other States adopted similar today all 51 States (incl PR) now have the Net-Metering law, what it is referred to today
My first Solar company Solar Cells inc held the first commercial
co-gen permit issued by FPL Jupiter Fl.
1993 Lawton went a step further and mandated in to law a plan that I came up with to knock out 15% of the State Office Buildings Electric consumptions over a 10yr period.
As soon as 'Little Bushy' Jeb took office he immediately wiped out all funding for the 10yr Initiative.
By 1998 Al (then Vice) liked my idea with the State Office Buildings and took it a step further and got some congressmen to put together Clinton's Million Roof Initiative for all Federal Office Buildings. As soon as 'Big Bushy' was handed the election in 2000 he again wiped out all funding for the Million Roof Initiative and this was back when the US treasury had more than enough money top pay for it...
I agree with the fact that Today we must use the Private Sector, because we as a nation are about broke.
BUT THE LARGEST SET BACK TO THE RENEWABLE ENERGY SECTOR HAS ALWAYS BEEN AND WILL ALWAYS BE THE COAL AND GAS LOBBY...
By the way this trend in not new.
In 1978 Then President Carter put Solar on White House and as soon as the 'Elder Bushy' 1980 came in as Vice ripped it all out.
One must ask why? It is real simple Money, they are to afraid they will lose the almost Monopoly the Coal and Gas holds on this Industry and now with the Fracking For Nat Gas.it will be this way for some time even though it IS A CRYING SHAME. The truth of the matter is the NUMBER ONE POLLUTER OF EARTH ALL OVER EARTH, IS THE EXTRACTION OF ENERGY SOURCES AND THEN THE BURNING OF THEM this is not rocket science.

Portsmouth Rhode Island Catastropic Wind Failure .This year $40 billion dollars worth of commercial wind turbines will come out of their warranty period. The out-of-warranty turbines around the 1.5 Megawatt range need, gearbox repairs, transmission upgrades and blade repairs during the period of 2011 to 2020.

The Town of Portsmouth paid $3 million dollars for a 1.5 Megawatt commercial wind turbine. Turbines are designed to last for 20 years but O&M strategies were not.
Operations and maintenance issues are commonly left out of the sales pitch when purchasing a commercial wind turbine. The town turbine is 3-years-old. Complete Failure.

The Town of Princeton ,Massachusetts had to pay $600,000.00 for a new gearbox on a three year old turbine !

We have seen 50 Falmouth,Massachusetts residents get sick over the poor siting of commercial wind turbines.Now comes the Town of Fairhaven with ten times the population of Falmouth with over 150 noise complaints three weeks after the recent installation of two brand new Chinese wind turbines. The Town of Kingston,Massachusetts has major issues over the noise and shadow flicker of the commercial wind turbines.

The Massachusetts State bureaucrats didn't like what they hear and made up their own rules instead.

This is why before commenting go look at the other alternatives to those giant propeller type Horizontal Axis wind turbines...maybe if their is a health hazard (again that is debatable).
There is Vertical Axis Wind and my Favorite which we will be doing more R&D in Magnetic Levitation Vertical Wind Turbine.
If there is money to made in any Industry; but there must be a fundamental change it how it is done, they will always be the Nay Sayers...

Before coaxing the public into yet another 'con' game, Renewable Energy World should direct focus on pushing for better science that would allow for safe and acceptable siting standards. Otherwise, it's just more sales propaganda, similar to what Richard K. Sullivan Jr., the MA state's secretary of of energy and environmental affairs, inferred in a recent Boston Globe piece. ..It certainly brings environmental benefits. But make no mistake, it's (wind power sources) going to be 'our' economic development strategy come hell or high winds."

In the mentioned documentary, the 20 year veteran of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Weston Wilson, offers an insight of the governmental malfeasance of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas. Mr. Wilson said, while explaining why the EPA was not 'on duty' - "when the President (i.e. MA Governor Patrick) says to his bureaucracy, don't investigate. Expedite things for industry. We do those jobs well too". Wilson empathizes with the interviewer stating, "what we should be picking up from these citizens (i.e. water contaminant or wind turbine victims- in Falmouth, Fairhaven & Kingston), we're (EPA) not. We haven't been directed too."

This touted 'community wind' philosophy is merely the same "horse of a different color". Massachusetts, for example, tries to glean the economic vitality of wind but one only has to look at the terrible failures of Priceton and now Portsmouth R.I. All the while, the Massachusetts Wind Turbine Health Impact Report's (Jan. 2012), sponsored by the Mass DEP & DPH, urged further and more definitive health effect studies, but the recommendations go ignored and go without budgeting.

Whether driven by the private developer or trying to have municipalities or communities embrace industrial wind power, it remains the 'new" GASLAND being played out where people live!

JD, I agree that government subsidy is sometimes needed to help private industry get new industries off the ground. But subsidies must be offered equally to everyone and all technologies on a level playing field (eg free markets).

The electricity industry, led by Thomas Edison, was innovating rapidly with co-generation before his protege Samuel Insull convinced politicians to establish utility monopolies in 1907. Since then, utility monopolies have mostly blocked co-generation, except in few large states from the late 1980s and early 1990s (PURPA).

Utility monopolies have failed to innovate. Combined cycle was invented by the defense industry. Wind power has made some improvement, mainly by Europe, but it has a long way to go. I would be surprised if the private sector invests much in R&D after Mid American (Warren Buffet) showed in Iowa that utilities can take wind power from independents anytime they want.

Mike, I would not go as far as to say Wind Power is disgrace. It is not. The real disgrace is exactly how you put it? it is the way the industry has gone about funding it...
But one thing you must remember from History it has always been government backing private enterprise that built all major new industries in this great country of ours IE: Railroad 1800's the barons got special tax incentives. So did the Freeway systems built in the 50's any and all major new industry including the Hydro-electric have the same Government Help with out that R&D in the 70 and 80's there would be no Internet...
The point is there is a need for help to kick-start any Industry in its Infancy;
But now it is time for the Private Sector to step up and make the cost less and the profit more and they are sitting on the sidelines instead.
As you will see the Government incentives are going away this yr and next yr the Renewable Energy sector will have a slow down do to this, but I believe the private
Sector will step up and come to its defense.
Remember anything having to do with government spending tends to be waistefull and sometimes out and out frudulent, thus the almost not -for -profit stance alot of this industry has in it. making it bloated and looking like it is not profitable...all this will change in the next few years.

Wind power is a disgrace. According to Windustry and NREL, federal and state subsidies amount to half to two-thirds of project costs. Transmission is three times other sources (due to the low capacity factor). Backup costs essentially double costs. If natural gas is used to integrate, there is no savings in greenhouse gases.

R&D is needed. But who is going to do it? The US is monopolized. The EU babies the industry with feed-in tariffs. China only copies and has given up on existing technologies. Free markets is the answer, but no country will do it right.

At one time, the Altamont Pass wind turbine area near Livermore, California had several vertical axis turbines beside the "normal" horizontal axis ones. The whole array has been being upgraded to much bigger turbines in the last few years, and the vertical axis ones have all disappeared. I assumed the vertical axis ones had not been as productive as the others. What is the big advantage you see in them? I always thought they were neat!

I love wind energy...just not this type...It is a real shame that the amounts of dollars spent on R&D do no get equally spent on the most promising sources...for example Vertical Axis Magnetic Levitation Wind is probably the most significant advancement in this industry since the Dutch started using wind to pump water... yet no real R&D money to see it succeed...

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